


Artificial affection

by armethaumaturgy



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Nasod au, Nasod!Esper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5178761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Greetings. I am the <i>Experimental system of parametric estimations and rationalisms</i>, or <i>ESPER</i> in short. My El energy storage units have been damaged badly during a cave in of this area. I have gone into sleep mode as there is only five percent of stored energy left, or roughly two hours. I take it you have been sent to retrieve me?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like Alice out the rabbit hole

**Author's Note:**

> Nasod Esper is love, Nasod Esper is life.  
> i’m pulling all this random blurb out of my ass, so scuse any nonsense.

When Mastermind decided to return to Altera to explore more of the buried tunnels, he didn’t expect this.

No way in all seven hells did he expect to find a Nasod laying buried underneath tons of rubble deep within the contaminated area. It was a blessing that the Nasod also turned on when prompted, otherwise his Anti-Alterasia capsule might’ve ran out.

The Nasod had a lean build, obviously heavily dependent on agility over brute force. White hair, similar to Eve’s, fell around its face and its clothes, though tattered here and there, were very interesting; a combination of a protective suit with El energy channeling properties. It stared up at him with pink eyes, but the blackness of its sclera off-put the neutral expression by a great deal.

Before Mastermind had a chance to ask anything, the Nasod started talking on its own. “Greetings. I am the _Experimental system of parametric estimations and rationalisms_ , or _ESPER_ in short. My El energy storage units have been damaged badly during a cave in of this area. I have gone into sleep mode as there is only five percent of stored energy left, or roughly two hours. I take it you have been sent to retrieve me?” Its – his – voice was flat, zero intonation as he ran over the basic overview of the situation.

Mastermind blinked down at the Nasod with a mix of curiosity and confusion. How long had he been here? “No, I have not.”

“Then you are not working for the Laboratory?”

Mastermind shook his head. “No. When did you go to sleep mode?”

Esper blinked a few times, calculations running through him. “Sixty thousand, seven hundred and forty-one days ago.”

Running through the quick equations, Mastermind blinked back in surprise. That's just about a hundred and sixty-six years ago.

“Does the Enhancement and modification laboratory still exist?” Esper asked.

“No, I’ve never heard of it.”

“I see. Then, who are you? Why have you reactivated me—“ Esper cut himself off with a loud beep. “Energy levels at four percent,” he announced. “Requesting immediate energy supply.”

Mastermind shook his head at the Nasod’s antics, but motioned to the tunnel nonetheless. “I can recharge you in my lab,” he said.

The Nasod followed him without any quarrel. It was an interesting notion, to have a Nasod following _him_ , for once. He couldn’t say he disliked it.

They stayed silent on the whole way back to Mastermind’s lab. He wanted to ask some things, but Esper completely ignored any attempts at starting a conversation. It was unclear to him if the Nasod was deliberately ignoring him or had just turned off his hearing functions to preserve power.

The latter turned out to be the more plausible answer when he had to repeat to Esper where to sit four times. The Nasod seated himself on the work table, facing sideways to allow Mastermind access to his neck.

The scientist brushed away his – surprisingly soft, though artificial of course – hair, looking at the ‘skin’ there.

On the back of the Nasod’s neck, disguised as a power button tattoo (Mastermind scoffed at that) was a small panel that, when pressed, popped off to reveal his switches and ports.

Esper’s body shivered when he ran his fingers over them, a little static energy passing between them from his use of the Dynamos earlier.

His eyes rowing the ports, he casually asked, “What were you built for? There are so many different ports in here…”

Esper peered at him from the side, but averted his eyes again soon. “To be a battle-ready information storage unit,” he answered, his intonation as flat as ever. “The battery route is the second one on the right.”

“Mhmm,” Mastermind hummed, untangling a few of his cables hurriedly. He plugged the right one in and Esper let out a long breath in return. His processors hummed a bit louder, and his whole body lost the touch of sluggishness it had.

Mastermind put the rest of the cables away and then took a seat by the Nasod. “A battle-ready information storage unit… huh?” he muttered, looking Esper up and down. “You don’t look much of a storage unit, though…”

Esper brought a hand up to his head and knocked against his temple a few times. “There’s a massive memory bank in here. I know much more than you can hope to discover in ten lifetimes.” He wasn’t mocking him, Mastermind knew, but his flat tone still sounded just a tad bit condescending.

“Should you be doing that?” He motioned at the fact that Esper was still knocking on his head. “Won’t that damage it?”

Esper let his hand fall, but shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “No idea. Don’t care.”

Mastermind frowned minutely. This Nasod didn’t stop baffling him with everything he did. He wasn’t sure if he ever would stop baffling him. “Why don’t you care?”

“There’s no one to give the information to. I don’t really have any need for it anymore.”

“I’m sure Eve would like it.” Mastermind didn’t mention that he himself would’ve very much loved it.

Esper looked at him incredulously. “The Queen? I don’t answer to the Queen. I am not a part of her rulership, therefore I don’t give information to her. And my superiors are long gone, so there is no one to relay the information to, as I already said.”

“But that’s such a waste!” Mastermind hissed.

Esper stared at him at his outburst, motionless for a few moments. He cocked his head to the side, almost like a child. “Are you interested in it? I could share them with you, but there's such a quantum, you probably won't have a way to use them.” And again, the flat tone sounded just a bit too condescending for Mastermind's taste.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll find a way to use it."

"Who are you anyway?"

"My name is Add. Mastermind lately. Just call me Mastermind," the scientist said, shrugging.

"Mastermind… Alright."

"I'll have to get the whole panel off to get to your energy tubes," Mastermind told him, moving the subject back to Esper’s much-needed repair.

"Alright." Esper gently, as to not tug off the cable still connected to his neck, pulled off his jacket and his top, revealing his back.

He stayed completely still while Mastermind unscrewed the larger panel taking up the whole of his back. Putting the cover away, Mastermind peered upon the inside.

There were two El energy storage tubes on either side of his spine. Black liquid pooled on their bottom.

"What is that…?" Mastermind muttered, more to himself than anything.

"My liquid clearing system have not been implemented yet," Esper told him anyway. "They were not necessary for my full functionality, therefore have been labeled low on the priority check."

Mastermind hummed, looking further down. The slots for El shards were damaged and missing their respective crystals. He reached for his toolbox sitting on the table nearby.

Working in silence, his fingers deftly changed the missing components and righted the damaged ones. He tossed the unneeded and useless scraps to a drone that carried them to the trash bin.

"Are there any El shards you prefer?" he asked, pondering over his shard collection.

Esper hummed in thought. "No. I have been running on Dark and Fire crystals, though."

"Why?"

"They were plentiful at the time of my creation."

"Look here," Mastermind said, holding a small box of the shards. He set it before Esper and straightened his back. "Which do you want?"

It was as much of an experiment as it was just sating his curiosity. Which shards would the Nasod choose? He didn't even notice that he was holding his breath as he waited.

Esper's lithe hand reached into the box tentatively. The Nasod's antics yet again reminded Mastermind of a child. Esper gazed down at the crystals for a long while. His cores hummed quietly.

Finally he pulled his hand out and presented it to Mastermind. In his palm sat a Dark and a Light crystal.

"These are… interesting," the Nasod stated.

"You like them."

Esper frowned. "I don't have the capacity to 'like'. My emotional codes have been disabled for my duty."

"You have emotional codes?" Mastermind asked, already interested. He moved behind the Nasod again and inserted the shards into their slots. They lit up and their power started spreading through Esper.

"All advanced, non-worker Nasods have the capacity to reproduce human emotions in their coding. Ah, thank you," the Nasod said. His eyes lit up, shining a bright pink, prominent in the dark of the lab.

Mastermind put away the toolbox onto a shelf, placing his hands onto his hips. "What are you going to do now?"

"I… I seem to lack any kind of an objective at the moment."

Mastermind quirked an eyebrow. He thought he was starting to get used to Esper's speech quirks. He wanted to know if he was right.

"Since there isn't a Laboratory anymore…" Esper looked at him curiously. "Mastermind… Would you mind me staying with you?"

Mastermind smirked. Yes, he had been right.

 


	2. From point zero

It was decidedly weird to have someone else in the lab - even if that someone was actually a robot. He still couldn't get used to the way Esper just hovered around all the time, fascinated by his equipment.

For claiming that he had no use for information, the Nasod was really curious.

It was very annoying to wake up and see Esper just standing there, staring at him with that immovable expression. To find Esper wandering around the whole place and poking around everything. To find him trying to understand some of his inventions. At least at first.

Mastermind wouldn't admit it out loud, but it was really calming having someone listen when he explained how his inventions worked. The Nasod was fascinated by how much he was able to make from so little. Mastermind felt almost… honored by that.

Esper also loved pointing every single flaw in his design or code. Though helpful, this was something that quickly started getting on Mastermind's nerves.

Esper also answered his questions, but he liked to do so in cryptic ways and what Mastermind could only describe as sarcasm, thought the Nasod denied that vehemently.

Esper made him realize how lonely he'd felt in the lam. Though until he got the company, he didn't even notice.

Esper wasn't one for conversation, though, the Nasod preferring to sit and observe as if that was the whole point of his existence. Well, maybe it was.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Esper drew out, sprawled across his already messy table - and probably crumpling more than a few papers filled with important notes. The Nasod's hawk-like hadn't left him for the past hour, so Mastermind was sure he knew what he was doing

Still, just to play along with the pretense, he answered. "Fixing the firing algorithms."

Esper kicked his feet, as was his habit when sitting or laying down, his tails rustling against his suit. "That won't help."

Mastermind spared him a single glare before closing a few brackets of the code and leaning back in his seat in favor of crossing his hands. "Why won't it?"

Esper propped his chin with his hands, looking at one of the holo-screens with disinterest. "Without the proper hardware upgrade, you can change the code all you want. Apocalypse's efficiency won't change much."

Mastermind rolled his eyes, though he knew the Nasod was right. He always was.

"That reminds me, though," he perked up, reaching down under the table to fish in a box he had there. From the sea of spare parts and components, he pull out a small console. "I got this from Eve earlier. I talked to her about your emotion codes and she said this'll allow me to access your coding."

He plugged the console into his computer while Esper slowly sat up. Surprisingly, he didn't mess up his work too much - he even pushed most of the papers out of the way before laying down.

“Is that a relay?” Esper asked, already answering himself. “I haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Last when I was put into commission.”

“Turn around.”

Esper sat on the table, his back to Mastermind while the scientist fiddled with his port cover. He connected the relay to the Nasod and Esper immediately slumped forward. Mastermind poked his side, but there was no responce. When he peeked over, he saw that the Nasod had shut down — or, more accurately, gone into transfer mode.

With a curious hum, Mastermind started looking through the codes.

Hours later, when the sun was setting outside already, he was finally done. He spent extra time looking over the code since there were parts that he didn’t understand — no matter how infuriating that was. He had worked without a pause, so now he rolled his stiff shoulders, sighing in relief when he relaxed them.

He disconnected the Nasod from the relay and the relay from his computer, putting it away in case he'd need it later. He powered Esper on and went to get himself a coffee to replenish his energy.

He didn't expect to come back to a fully-on, already emotional robot.

Esper's face was set in a wide smile, one that somehow accented his inverted eyes. His kicking legs were much more enthusiastic, somehow.

"Thank you!" Esper said when he sat down again. "I feel… warm now."

He suddenly wasn't sure if activating the emotional codes was a good idea.

* * *

"I feel warm," Esper said, as he so usually did. The Nasod didn't seem to be able to distinguish between his feelings very well, so he took to telling Mastermind in vague terms.

'Warm', 'cold', 'empty', 'icy', 'nice', those were only a few of the words Esper used for description. Most of the time Mastermind could deduce what the Nasod felt, but sometimes it was completely out of place and he had no idea at all.

Like now, why was Esper feeling 'warm'?

They were in the middle of Sander’s desert, since Mastermind said he wanted to go check something. He wanted to look at some of the Behemoth’s remains. The two of them were wandering around the disturbing scene, the scientist taking extra samples for analysis later while Esper looked around in interest. Though his interest was more aimed at the white-haired genius than the dead body.

“Anything else you feel?” Mastermind asked, scooping up the sticky residue resin from of the Behemoth’s organs. He found it easier to distinguish Esper’s feelings if he described them with a few synonyms. Though even so, it was tough, since he himself didn’t have a great vocabularly of the emotional spectrum.

“Hmm.” Esper’s fans whirred quietly as he thought. “I feel… warm. And a little… elevated?” The Nasod obviously raked his records for the right word — or words — to describe his predicament, if his scrunched nose and drawn-together brow were of any indication.

“Elevated?”

“As in, when you are above something? As in, overlooking something?” Esper’s voice was still rising at the end, making the sentences into shaky questions. Mastermind, however, had no idea what he was talking about and only frowned at him. Esper was obviously starting to get frustrated with himself. “What’s the point of these? …if I have no idea what they are, what is the point of these emotions?!”

Mastermind’s expression softened and he stood up, dusting his pants off as he did so. Placing a hand on Esper’s shoulder, he said, “You’ll figure it out.”

After all, it’s not like he doesn’t have problems with his own emotions often.

Maybe he should’ve said ‘we’ll’.


End file.
